oh. My. Gawd. This was incredibly gorgeous and moving and just... guh! It had such a marvelous flow to it, mysterious and compelling. Truly, it was one of those pieces that worked marvelously as a piece of R/S fic, but could totally stand on it's own with original characters.
I really loved the psychological/supernatural aspects of this - and how they could be either or both at the same time. Marlene as a kind of witch/curandera was wonderful, too.
I truly loved every word of this, but this passage really stood out: He had always imagined falling from the rim of a canyon you would never know not-falling for all your death. Death would be a falling off the edge of consciousness falling and falling into eternity. He stood at the brink: Arizona, winter. The color with untold names vivid sharp against the snow and the end of the day. That country such a vision of sublime horror that each night it seemed uncertain the sun would rise again. Beneath his boots a few pebbles slipped over the steep escarpment into infinity. Almost inconceivably far below the river which at one time had rent the skin of this very earth like cloth into a riot of deep bloody endless wounds was but a ghost of shadow. You captured the landscape perfectly, my dear.
In fact, one of the very best things about this piece (and, truly, there were many), was the fact that the landscape, that sense of place, was a character in and of itself. Granted, may be a little biased because I live in New Mexico and have also lived in California and Washington, and traveled extensively in the places you've mentioned, but you did a truly outstanding job of making the reader feel as though they were experiencing all that Remus experienced. There is something truly magical (in all senses) about the landscape of the American West.
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I really loved the psychological/supernatural aspects of this - and how they could be either or both at the same time. Marlene as a kind of witch/curandera was wonderful, too.
I truly loved every word of this, but this passage really stood out: He had always imagined falling from the rim of a canyon you would never know not-falling for all your death. Death would be a falling off the edge of consciousness falling and falling into eternity. He stood at the brink: Arizona, winter. The color with untold names vivid sharp against the snow and the end of the day. That country such a vision of sublime horror that each night it seemed uncertain the sun would rise again. Beneath his boots a few pebbles slipped over the steep escarpment into infinity. Almost inconceivably far below the river which at one time had rent the skin of this very earth like cloth into a riot of deep bloody endless wounds was but a ghost of shadow. You captured the landscape perfectly, my dear.
In fact, one of the very best things about this piece (and, truly, there were many), was the fact that the landscape, that sense of place, was a character in and of itself. Granted, may be a little biased because I live in New Mexico and have also lived in California and Washington, and traveled extensively in the places you've mentioned, but you did a truly outstanding job of making the reader feel as though they were experiencing all that Remus experienced. There is something truly magical (in all senses) about the landscape of the American West.
I know I'm rambling, but I just loved this so much. I shall read it again tonight while sipping mezcal, the good stuff that won't make you go blind: http://www.foodandwine.com/articles/tastemakers-mezcal-missionary-ron-cooper